Amit Chakma – A successful man of Chakma Tribe

News Desk:

Amit Chakma is a man from Chakma tribe, displayed a unique example of success in his life. He was born in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh .He received a scholarship from the Algerian government, along with nine other Bangladeshi students, to study natural gas processing engineering at Algerian Petroleum Institute in Algeria. In 1982, he graduated at the top of his class. He then moved to Canada and earned a Masters of Applied Science and PhD in chemical engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1984 and 1987 respectively. From 1988 until 1996, he taught chemical engineering at the University of Calgary. In 1996, he moved to the University of Regina as dean of engineering. He then served as Regina’s vice president research from 1999 to 2001. During his time at the University of Regina, Amit Chakma was named to Canada’s Top 40 under 40 list. He became vice president academic and provost at the University of Waterloo in 2001. His research interests were natural gas engineering and petroleum waste management. On July 1, 2009, Amit Chakma succeeded Paul Davenport as the University of Western Ontario’s president. Having left the University of Waterloo, he has been noted for his service to both the university and the academic and business community of Kitchener-Waterloo.

On June 19, 2010 Amit Chakma received an honorary doctor of engineering degree from the University of Waterloo. He was recognized for playing a leading role in the establishment of a new health sciences campus in Kitchener and the relocation of the school of architecture to Cambridge during his tenure as vice-president at Waterloo. In 2012, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his contributions to Canadian post-secondary education.

In 2014 Amit Chakma was awarded a Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Award. The award citation described how he used education as the basis for his remarkable journey as a young boy from a tribe in the hills of southeastern Bangladesh to becoming a university president in Canada.

In 2014 Amit was the recipient of the Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award. The award is meant to provide national recognition for a career of outstanding contributions to further international education at state and land-grant institutions. The award is named after Michael P. Malone, an American historian and 10th president of Montana State University. In 2015 Amit Chakma received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Engineering Alumni group at the University of British Columbia.

Amit Chakma has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of a Canada-based development organization of long standing the World University Services of Canada (WUSC) from 2011-2015.
He also served on the Board of Trustees of the Asian University for Women.